Salons
01
June 2017
Canadian Scientific Communities
A project
developed by Érudit.
Salons
Perspectives on society through scholarly journals
No. 01 - June 2017

Canadian Scientific Communities: a History

The Confederation is 150 years old, but how old is Canadian science? How was our scientific community built? Was it English or French before being Canadian? And what is its foreseeable future?

Articles

  • Article
Division de la gestion de documents et des archives, Université de Montréal

A Brief History of Scientific Institutions in Canada

The principle task for the European explorers who first visited and then settled New France was to explore the geography of these new lands and to identify the natural resources.

  • Yves Gingras, Professor in the History Department at the Université du Québec à Montréal, Holder of the Canada Research Chair in the History and Sociology of Science
  • Pierre-Luc Beauchamp, Doctoral candidate, Université du Québec à Montréal
  • Comment
Bibliothèque et Archives Canada

How about in 150 years? A brief reflection on the future of science production

While it isn’t easy to imagine the research sector in a future as distant as in 150 years, we can however be sure, in the light of the changes in the Canadian scientific field over the past 150 years, that digital technology will continue to cause a major reframing of the means of production and dissemination of knowledge and content in the humanities.

  • Michael Sinatra, Professor of English at the Université de Montréal, Director of Research Dissemination of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences
  • Journal Portrait

Scientia Canadensis: The history of science in Canada since 1976

  • David Pantalony, Editor-in-Chief of Scientia Canadensis
  • William Knight, Managing Editor of Scientia Canadensis

In 1976 Richard Jarrell and Arnold Roos founded the HSTC Bulletin, the Quarterly Newsletter for the History of Science and Technology of Canada. In 1984, the HSTC Bulletin became Scientia Canadensis: Journal of the History of Canadian, Science, Technology and Medicine / revue canadienne d'histoire des sciences, des techniques et de la médecine.

  • David Pantalony, Editor-in-Chief of Scientia Canadensis
  • William Knight, Managing Editor of Scientia Canadensis
  • Translated article of the month

Scientific Exchanges Between Quebec, Canada and the European Union as Seen Through the Prism of Scholarly Publications (1980-2009)

  • Yves Gingras, Professor in the History Department at the Université du Québec à Montréal, Holder of the Canada Research Chair in the History and Sociology of Science

This article examines the evolving relationships between researchers from Quebec and Canada and their counterparts in countries of the European Union over a period of thirty years. A quantitative analysis of scientific publications and their characteristics provides a useful and informative mapping of international scientific relations and their development over time at the national, provincial and institutional levels. This type of analysis is useful not only in evaluating the effects of internationalization policies, but can also be used as a tool to create policies that are consistent with the choices of researchers who, following the logic specific to their field of specialization, build international networks so as to maximize their research success.

  • Yves Gingras, Professor in the History Department at the Université du Québec à Montréal, Holder of the Canada Research Chair in the History and Sociology of Science

Bibliography

1954
L’annedda et l’arbre de vie
Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française
vol. 8, no 2 : 171-212
1975
Nationalisme et champ scientifique québécois
Sociologie et sociétés
vol. 7, no 2: 89-114
1977
Lafitau et la pensée ethnologique de son temps
Études littéraires
vol. 10, no 1-2 : 19-47
1978
La pharmacopée traditionnelle des Iroquois : une étude ethnohistorique
Anthropologie et Sociétés
vol. 2, no 3 : 117-138
1979
Le frère Marie-Victorin et les “petites sciences”
Recherches sociographiques
vol. 20, no 1: 7-39
1981
Science et société coloniale : les naturalistes du Canada français et leurs correspondants scientifiques (1860-1900)
HSTC Bulletin
vol. 5, no 2: 99-139
1981
La société littéraire et historique de Québec (The Literary and Historical Society of Quebec), 1824-1890
Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française
vol. 35, no 2: 179-192
1984
The Dawning of a National Scientific Community in Canada, 1878-1896
HSTC Bulletin
vol. 8, no 1: 32-58
1986
La fondation de l’Institut canadien
Cap-aux-Diamants
vol. 2, no 3: 13-15
1987
The Infrastructure of an Emerging Field
Scientia Canadensis
vol. 11, no. 1: 37-45
1990
Les origines du sucre d’érable
Les Cahiers des Dix
no 45 : 53-66
1991
The National Research Council of Canada: Its Historiography, its Chronology, its Bibliography
Scientia Canadensis
vol. 15, no 2: 177-193
1996
Aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles : l’exportation de plantes médicinales canadiennes en Europe
Cap-aux-Diamants
no 46: 20-24
1997
The Rise and Decline of Science at Quebec, 1824-1844
Social History / Social History
vol. 10, no. 19: 77-91
1999
William Logan’s History of the Geological Survey of Canada
Geoscience Canada
vol. 26, no. 3: 111-120
2011
L’évolution des collaborations scientifiques entre le Québec, le Canada et l’Union européenne (1980-2009)
Globe
vol. 14, no 2: 185-197

Focus on the journals

History
Scientia Canadensis

Scientia Canadensis is the only peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the history of science, technology, and medicine in Canada. Published by the Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association (CSTHA/AHSTC), the journal was first published in 1976 as HSTC Bulletin. In addition to peer-reviewed scholarship, Scientia Canadensis also publishes research notes, book reviews, bibliographies, and other contributions in English and French.
Environment
Le Naturaliste canadien

Founded in 1868 by Father Léon Provancher, Le Naturaliste canadien is a half-yearly journal disseminating knowledge in the fields of natural sciences and environment that publishes French-language articles on North-American topics, such as naturalists’ observations, inventory or research results, literature reviews as well as considerations on scientific or environmental topics.
History
Mens

Mens: revue d'histoire intellectuelle de l’Amérique française was founded in 2000. This semi-annual learned journal is dedicated to Quebec, French Canada and French America history of ideas and culture. Mens' field is intellectual history in its broadest definition, including the history of intellectuals' doctrines, of various organisations' (such as unions and political parties) ideologies, as well as ideological movements such as feminism and nationalism.
History
Journal of the Canadian Historical Association

Founded in 1922 as the Report of the Annual Meeting (from 1966-1989 under the title Historical Papers) the Journal of the Canadian Historical Association / Revue de la Société historique du Canada publishes papers in any field that opens up new avenues of historical enquiry, explores a subject previously treated in a fresh and promising fashion, and/or employs a method or approach of interest to historians working outside the narrow specialization of the paper in question.
View all the journals available on Érudit

On the same topic

  • Virtual Exhibition
The History of the Geological Survey of Canada in 175 Objects

175 objects tell the story of the Geological Survey of Canada and its contributions to the development of Canada since 1842
  • Archives
National Research Council Archives Photographs
  • Video
Arts et sciences au Bas-Canada, extrait de la série Histoire des sciences au Québec (Télé-Université, 1989)
  • Picture
Cover of the month

A woman working in a science classroom, at the Montréal Neurological Institute, Montreal, Quebec, May 1954.

Photo : Chris Lund (1923-1983)

Source: National Film Board, Photography department, Library and Archives Canada

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